1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a drawing apparatus and a method for detecting the inclination of a nail in the drawing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A drawing apparatus that draws a nail design on a nail has conventionally been known. Such a drawing apparatus is described in, for example, JP 2003-534083 T. The use of such a drawing apparatus makes it possible to enjoy a nail design easily without going to a nail salon or the like.
A drawing apparatus for nail printing has a structure where a finger having a nail on which a nail design is intended to be drawn is inserted into the drawing apparatus. Here, a sheet of paper and the like that are a normal printer's drawing targets do not incline normally. However, in such a drawing apparatus for nail printing, for example, the finger inserted in the drawing apparatus may rotate about an axis in the finger's extending direction to make the nail of the finger inclined with respect to a proper state that the nail is not inclined, with respect to the width direction. When the nail is inclined in this manner, if the nail design is drawn on the nail as it is without being aware of the inclined nail, the design drawn on the nail may be lopsided or distorted and its finish may not look beautiful.
Hence, when the nail is rotated about the axis of the finger extending direction and is inclined, it is preferable to take steps of, for example, correcting drawing data in accordance with the state of the inclination of the nail and then drawing, or prompting a user to stop the drawing operation, reset the finger, and try not to incline the nail.
The drawing apparatus for nail printing conventionally has a configuration to take a picture of a nail from above and has a configuration to detect the outline of the nail from the picture obtained by imaging. However, it is difficult to accurately detect the degree of the inclination of the nail, the inclination having been caused by the rotation about the axis in the finger's extending direction, in the picture imaged in this manner.